TAMIU IBC Bank and Commerce Bank Upcoming Keynote Speaker Focuses on Social Security
Texas A&M International University's (TAMIU) IBC Bank & Commerce Bank 2026-27 Keynote Speaker Series will feature Romina Boccia, director of budget and entitlement policy at the Cato Institute, in a lecture titled “Reimagining Social Security: Political Narratives and Economic Reality.”
The lecture is set for Wednesday, Nov. 11, at 6 p.m. in the TAMIU Student Center Ballroom (STC 203). Doors open at 5:30 p.m.
The presentation is free and open to the public. It will also be broadcast live via Microsoft Teams. To view online, visit: go.tamiu.edu/boccia.
The talk will examine Social Security's design, including the disconnect between the program's pay-as-you-go financing, the nature of the trust fund, and the widespread belief that workers are saving for their own retirement.
Drawing on nationally representative polling conducted by the Cato Institute, the discussion focuses on how Americans understand Social Security, where public perceptions diverge from reality and how alternative framings affect support for reform.
In her role at the Cato Institute, Boccia focuses on federal spending, the budget process, the economic consequences of rising debt and reforms to Social Security and Medicare. She is the principal author of the Substack newsletter Debt Dispatch. Her book, "Reimagining Social Security: Global Lessons for Retirement Policy Changes," is co-authored with Ivane Nachkebia.
Boccia previously served as director of the Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget at the Heritage Foundation, where she was the principal author of the Blueprint for Balance, the organization’s flagship budget plan, which informed President Donald Trump’s first-term budget proposal.
She has contributed chapters to "A Fiscal Cliff: New Perspectives on the U.S. Federal Debt Crisis" and published on James Buchanan’s case for a balanced budget amendment in the peer-reviewed journal Homo Oeconomicus. Most recently, Boccia was managing director at Dialog, an invite-only leadership network co-founded by Peter Thiel and Auren Hoffman. A native of Augsburg, Germany, Boccia holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree in economics from George Mason University.
For additional information, contact the Center for the Study of Western Hemispheric Trade at 956.326.2820, email cswht@tamiu.edu, or visit www.tamiu.edu/cswht.
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